3. Developing Future Skills

Introduction

The National Workplace Strategy supports the widely-accepted view that Ireland continues to face significant challenges in developing the skills sets of its labour force, across all industries and across all grades of employment. While education levels in Ireland are now broadly in line with the OECD average, we consistently rank behind the leading innovative economies of the OECD on indicators of labour-force skills, including third and fourth-level qualifications, and in terms of investment in and take-up of lifelong learning opportunities. The OECD points out that this is particularly worrying given that Ireland’s level of specialisation in high-technology employment sectors is the highest in the EU. The January 2006 report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs outlined particular demand-side concerns for courses in technology and engineering-related subjects.

The National Workplace Strategy calls for these issues to be proactively and cohesively managed both at a policy level and at the level of the enterprise. The responsibility for these issues crosses multiple Government Departments and agencies, and requires the involvement of training and education providers, as well as individual employers, managers, union representatives and employees at the enterprise level.

 

Developing Future Skills: Points of Contact

 

 

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